Isuzu D-Max 2020 review: SX crew cab 4x4 off-road

Our test vehicle – the SX crew cab 4x4 – is the entry-level pick-up-style D-Max. As such, it is a basic vehicle but it has everything you need, minus the frippery. Again, that’s refreshing. The list price on this variant is $46,700 MSRP; price as tested was $44,110 MSRP.

It has a 7.0-inch touch-screen with basic functionality, cloth seats, rubber mats on the floor and vinyl flooring under those.

There are rubber mats on the floor and vinyl flooring under those.

If you want Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, AEB (autonomous emergency braking) in your D-Max, as well as other driver-assist tech, you’ll have to wait until the next-generation range arrives here later in 2020. 

It has 16-inch steel wheels on Bridgestone Dueler A/Ts.

The D-Max has 16-inch steel wheels on Bridgestone Dueler A/Ts.

The D-Max has a 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine (producing 130kW at 3600rpm and 430Nm at 2000-2200rpm), a six-speed automatic transmission, and a part-time 4WD system.

The D-Max has a 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine.

This is a reliably robust set-up, but it’s a noisy one.

The D-Max’s truck-like characteristics continue when you're off roading, for better or worse – I reckon, better. 

It's very basic, very simple but very effective too. It's a little bit noisy. It's a bit of a rough rider, but that's all part of the fun. 

The D-Max’s traction control system is pretty effective for light-duty off-roading where the road or track surface is a bit slippery. It works by applying braking to the spinning wheel – the one with little to no traction – and transferring power to the wheel, which actually has traction.

But, on terrain where you need sustained engine torque – on a steep rutted hill, for example – it’s better to switch it off. The system will automatically disengage when you switch the D-Max to 4L (4WD low-range) anyway.

A diff-lock will boost the D-Max's off-road capabilities.

The D-Max is generally a good off-roader and it has decent ground clearance, good wheel-travel, but when you get on a steep hill with deep ruts and loose gravel, its weakness is exposed. 

You need controlled throttle and momentum for safe, steady progress over difficult off-road terrain and that’s not always possible to achieve in the D-Max. For instance, because it does not have a diff lock, you have to sink the boot in to keep the D-Max moving up a steep hill, and I would certainly not recommend doing that on our particularly steep, rutted gravel-and-dirt test incline.

By driving at the hill faster and harder, I would have been able to get the D-Max a bit further up it, but that’s far from ideal because, by doing that, I would have been risking vehicle damage.

And before all of the armchair experts get fired up, I had several cracks at this hill with traction control on and off, and in high and low range, just to see how the D-Max would perform using different approaches to the problem. The result? A distinct absence of forward progress at similar points on the hill. 

The D-Max does have some sturdy steel underbody protection for inadvertent bumps.

That hiccup doesn’t indicate that the D-Max is a weak off-roader – not at all – because an aftermarket diff-lock, at least, would go some of the way to sorting out that strife. Aggressive all terrains and aftermarket suspension should also be on your shopping list if you plan to improve your D-Max as an off-road tourer.

In its favour, the D-Max does have some sturdy steel underbody protection for inadvertent bumps and scrapes while being driven off-road.

The D-Max has a claimed payload of 1034kg, an unbraked towing capacity of 750kg and a braked towing capacity of 3500kg.

All D-Maxes have six airbags, electronic stability control, reversing camera and more. The D-Max range has a five-star ANCAP rating from testing in 2013.

Fuel consumption is a claimed 7.9L/100km on a combined cycle.